Blair to testify on Thursday in Kelly inquiry

Britain's Tony Blair faces the biggest credibility test of his six-year premiership this week when he testifies at an inquiry into the suicide of an Iraq weapons expert which has sent his public ratings plummeting.

The prime minister will be interrogated by senior judge Lord Hutton in an inquiry into the death of David Kelly, who was found dead with a slashed wrist last month after he became enmeshed in a bitter row about Mr Blair's case for war in Iraq.

Mr Blair's day in the stand on Thursday follows testimony from Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, who appears tomorrow and is widely seen as the most likely "fall guy" for the government.

Both men testify against a background of growing public distrust in Mr Blair and plunging opinion poll ratings in the wake of the Iraq war - with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq weighing heavily on Mr Blair's credibility.

An opinion poll in the Sunday Telegraph showed 67 per cent of those questioned thought Mr Blair's government had deceived the public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Fifty-two per cent said they thought Hoon should resign.

If Mr Hoon were to go, he would join a list of ministers who have resigned or been forced to quit since Mr Blair won power, with a series of sleaze scandals and pressure to improve poor health, education and transport services taking their toll.

The inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly, who was named as the source of a BBC report accusing Mr Blair's government of "sexing up" a dossier aimed at winning over a sceptical public to the case for war in Iraq, has already exposed the prime minister to some deeply uncomfortable scrutiny.

It has showed that his chief of staff believed the dossier contained no proof of a threat from Saddam, and a whole series of Mr Blair's aides made suggestions to make it more dramatic.

It has also shone a penetrating light on the inner workings of Mr Blair's government, with officials putting pressure on Dr Kelly not to air his doubts about the dossier - specifically about its claim that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice.

Ministers had been told that Dr Kelly, a respected expert on Iraqi weapons, had views which they could find "uncomfortable" if he were given a platform to voice them. The inquiry took the unprecedented step of publishing around 9,000 pages of documentary evidence on Saturday, laying bare machinery of government in thousands of e-mails and memos from ministers, civil servants and journalists about the Kelly case.

Some documents show how Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell urged his boss to be more combative over Iraq.

"As to the manner in which you deal with it, it must be calm, confident, explanatory and thorough," Campbell told Blair in a note dated June 3. "But when you go on to the broader issues, in particular reporting back on Iraq, I think you should display a more combative approach."

The documents were published on the internet at www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk.

The inquiry, which was not sitting yesterday because of a public holiday, begins the week's proceedings on Tuesday with evidence from several high-level civil servants, including John Scarlett, the Joint Intelligence Committee chief who assembled the dossier on Iraq weapons at the centre of the row.